An international organization of the Poale Zionists was recognized as a separate Federation. The conference closed on Wednesday evening.
THE ALLIANCE IN JERUSALEM
The Jewish Daily News was the authority for a news item to the effect that the Alliance Universelle Israelite was in some manner connected with an Arabian Bank in Jerusalem, which competes with the Anglo-Palestine bank. The Alliance has made public the following denial of that item:
"We read in your issue of February 20, that the Alliance Israelite maintains in Jerusalem an Arab bank which competes with the Zionist bank. It seems that you have been imposed upon, for the Alliance does not, directly or indirectly, occupy itself with banking or commerce of any kind. It possesses no banking house and does not support any; and we are at a loss as to what may have given rise to the error which you published. In the interest of truth we ask you to publish this letter in rectification of so unjustifiable an allegation.
"J. BIGART."
DEATH OF OSCAR MARMOREK
The death of Oscar Marmorek, the well-known Zionist of Vienna, occured this month in that city under shocking circumstances. Herr Marmorek had been suffering from temporary insanity, due to a serious operation he had undergone. In his unfortunate state, he often visited the Vienna Jewish Cemetery, where his father was buried. A few days before Pesach he was found there dead from a self-inflicted bullet wound.
Marmorek was born in 1863 in Galicia. He was a brother of Dr. Alexander Marmorek, the bacteriologist. He studied at the polytechnic high school at Vienna and took a post graduate course at Paris. He returned to Vienna in 1889, and settled
there in practice as a architect. He designed the illuminated fountain at the Forestry exposition of 1890 at Vienna, the music hall at the Vienna Musical exposition of 1892, and the plan of the villa district of Assee.
At an early age Oscar Marmorek became interested in Jewish questions. With his brother Alexander, he became one of the first members of the Vienna Kadimah. He was one of the reliable lieutenants of Theodor Herzl, during the first stages of the movement. At the first Zionist Congress he was appointed a member of the Actions Committee. In 1902 he was a member of the El Arish expedition. Since the death of Herzl, he was officially interested in Zionism, and he always continued his activity in the movement until misfortune overtook him.
HEBREW RECOGNIZED BY NEW YORK REGENTS
The New York Board of Regents, the educational authority of the state, has admitted Hebrew as a subject in its curriculum. Hereafter students who have applied themselves to the study of Hebrew will receive the same number of counts to their credit as those who have mastered Greek and Latin, thus placing Hebrew in the same standard of importance as the classic languages. Heretofore, the mastery of Hebrew has given the student no counts at all in the Regents' examinations, and a very large percentage of young Jewish students who have spent years in mastering the language have had nothing to show for it when they came to take Regents' examination. Mr. Edward Lauterbach, who is one of the members of the Board of Regents, instigated by Joseph Barondess, brought this fact to the notice of the Board, with the representation that students of Hebrew should be entitled to credit for their study just as were students of Greek and Latin. The Board accordingly passed a resolution to that effect.